Why did they give us bridges when they took our rivers away? Poem by Michal Habaj

(dedicated to Valdemarr van Staveren van Dijk)


the wind hushes its breath so pretty are the hairstyles of the girls
the little wooden chapel is praying for their souls
which lost in bank machines beg for so much mercy
as will sustain the account of their lightandeasy faces

they lay them like translucent cups under the heaven
till they are full with the first sprinklings of the snow
the heavens drink from them the sun the chirrupping birds and you
always when the years are flowing on but life is at a stand

//are these still our souls between escape and delete? //

look once again at the birds flying away for the winter
into television sets with every wave of their wings
heaven is narrowing till it will leave only a wrinkle
a cursor pointing the same way from time immemorial

nothing to see on the screen now but the flutter of the faces
that the girls lay on the surface of the disks
they glitter far into the night as long as your credit allows you
to open the videoclips of their lives and little deaths

//are these still our bodies between play and stop? //

night squats over the city like a black butcheress
the spittle on the innocent is draining into her mouth
these on their knees are washing their faces in the mists
eight centuries old in the distance against the river's flow

will you find a source where pure and holy words are living
the tongue of girls once bore them now there are no such girls
and words lie in the mouths of crones ashygrey waiting
for a galloping tongue driven on by the blood of the innocent

//are these still our words between yes and no? //

the country crucified on the screen is a picture
of the pain of those who breakfast in an armchair on the cross
and the longdead gaze in each other's faces as if watching
a film that never saw the sun going down

this earth beneath our feet is the cross that we carry
we bow our heads and sign out of the internet
we receive the host and copy it on a diskette
in the name of the Father Son and Holy Spirit Enter

//are we a fire from which the wings of birds are thrashing
fettered forever to the future ash? //

English Translation from Martin Solotruk